“Some may be a little heavy
Someone may be a little light
Being imperfect is a human being
Just remember tis all right!”
Do you know who are Lulu and Nana?
By the way they apparently cannot get HIV!
Curious and puzzled!?
read on!
So apparently there is a gene called CCR5 which actually helps the HIV virus enter a healthy cells! Now what if you have a means by which you could disable this gene which then would make the virus not able to enter the healthy cell and you would have a natural immunity to HIV!
That will be like a super power!
Now it is not like Nature has not done this type of genetic modifications before since there is a great example of this natural gene splicing which makes so much sense!
Like the presence of a disease called the sickle cell anemia in areas endemic to malaria! Apparently these individuals get either a milder form of the disease or in some cases have a natural resistance to malaria! More on that in another blog!
Now coming to Lulu and Nana!
These are the first human twins whose ‘genes’ had been ‘edited’ at the embryonic stage to make them resistant to HIV
The twin’s father was had HIV and that is when the story gets interesting!
By the way this whole process is and has been unethical, illegal and frankly scary! The ‘scientist’ or the researcher who did this, is now in the prison!
Historically it has been several years since this was done. The twins were born in October 2018 and the researcher was He Jiankui!
He Jiankui was a Chinese researcher and ex-professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China.
He claimed to have created the first germline edited babies.
There have been several investigations in the case and apparently the ‘facts’ and ‘claims’ are not clear!
Some have identified many problems with the work.
The most prevalent was widespread mosaicism in both twins.
This means the edits to the gene were not displayed uniformly in cells, the changes made showed up differently in different cells, and so some parts of their bodies may contain the edits He made, some may contain other edits, and others no edits at all!
He also only managed to edit half of Lulu’s CCR5 genes, and the rest are apparently completely normal, meaning she is either heterozygous (every cell in her body has one normal copy of CCR5 and one edited copy) or mosaic (half her cells have two edited copies and the other half have two normal copies) for the edited CCR5 gene now!
It is apparent that both twins could be fully vulnerable to HIV! Much ‘ado’ about nothing you would think!
Even worse, there is no way to tell whether this is the case or not, meaning there is no ‘ADVANTAGE’ to HE’s work!
“Although the twins’ father had HIV, they were at virtually no risk of contracting HIV.
If they remain HIV-negative, there is no way to show it had anything to do with the editing that was done”!
‘He’ deactivated a perfectly normal gene attempting to reduce the risk of a disease neither child had, and one that could be controlled with antiviral drugs and just normal routine precautions!
Even if the attempt had been successful, the deactivation of CCR5 does not bestow complete immunity to HIV, as some strains can enter healthy cells through a different protein altogether!
When assessing the embryos for edits, a few cells were taken, and their DNA was analysed. The remaining 200-300 cells, which went on to multiply and make up Lulu and Nana, were not assessed and so it is possible off-target edits may be present in them. If so, there are risks these edits could cause problems such as cancer and heart disease, and they may even be passed onto the twins’ future children!
So a poorly done edit by an inexperienced researcher could have actually made the matter worse!
International committees brought together by the World Health Organisation have been trying to put together better regulatory frameworks regarding germline editing and for now this is the only real-world example of human germline editing!
It has to be made sure that this does not happen again since at the genetic level you are playing with the factors responsible for creation of life of which we have very limited knowledge!
The above incident was mentioned in the novel coming wave! Unfortunately in this and another novel Nexus, it has also been suggested of using such gene modification techniques to create an ‘evil’ new virus!
Now advancement and new innovations are vital to any industry but it must be done with caution and responsibility. In the quest of making a ‘perfect’ human you should not end up with ‘the Frankenstein’s monster!”.
Here also remember that it is not the Monster who is at fault, but the creator!
By the way it has also come to light that a third child was born by these ‘experiments’ in 2019!
For now of course a South China Morning Post reported that all three children are doing well. “They have a normal, peaceful, and undisturbed life,”!
Of course Lulu and Nana are not their real names! If you know their real names or identity then please keep it to yourself! Like how everyone kept the secret that the Pokkiri Mahesh in the movie directed by birthday celebrity Petla “Puri” Jagannadh Pokkiri is actually a cop!
Now be happy that you cannot be genetically modified now and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!
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